


A (Totally Illegal) Lovely Getaway

by thewhiskerydragon



Series: home, love, family [1]
Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gun Violence (mentioned), Introspection, Russia, dima is a dweeb, i know jack about russian history/politics dont @ me there, these people are Fools and i would die for them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12181875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhiskerydragon/pseuds/thewhiskerydragon
Summary: A train ride through Russia, border patrol, and three fugitives. What could go wrong?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This little plot bunny has been gathering dust in my hard drive for a few weeks now. Dialogue is a combination of the movie, what I remember of the musical, and a little of my own original work; I claim no copyright over any of this. Please don't sue me. Feedback/criticism/pointing out grammatical/spelling/style errors is awesome!!!

Dmitry’s feet are cold when he wakes.

More in the literal sense than the metaphorical, mind you. Sure, he has his doubts, but Dmitry is not the sort of person to balk at the first hurdle that comes his way. He is many things—a liar, a thief, a fraud—but a coward is not one of them.

So yes, cold feet. What else? Dmitry takes a mental inventory of himself and his surroundings, filing away each complaint in the back of his mind: aching shoulders, stiff legs, sore heels. A pounding headache is building at his temples. There’s an irritatingly itchy spot over his left shoulder blade that’s probably just about beyond his reach. His head is twisted at an odd angle—no doubt he’s going to have a horrid crick in his neck for the rest of the day—and he’s leaning against a warm and scratchy _something_. Dmitry cranes his neck for a better look and realizes, with a hot flash of embarrassment, that he has been sleeping on Anya’s shoulder, his face half-pressed into the sleeve of her coat. She seems entirely unperturbed by this revelation—if anything, she hasn’t noticed him at all. Too absorbed in her book to pay him any attention. He sits bolt upright, face burning.

From his seat across the compartment, Vlad raises a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Ah, Dmitry. Nice of you to join us in the land of the living.”

Each word sends a dull, throbbing pang through his head. He presses a hand to his brow and finds it slick with sweat. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Not for long,” says Anya, not even looking up from her book. “A half an hour at the most.”

Dmitry leans back in his seat, massaging his temples. He hadn’t intended on falling asleep. Not now, not when they’re so tantalizingly close to the border. Perhaps Vlad’s incessant ramblings had put him to sleep—it wouldn’t be the first or even the tenth time for that.

“What did I miss?”

“Hardly anything of interest,” says Vlad. “Anya and I were just discussing our plans for France.”

“Vlad’s been telling me _all_ about it,” Anya says. “About Paris and Marseilles and Lyon. And Lily,” she adds with a smirk, and Dmitry shoots Vlad a look that clearly says: _You told her about Lily?!_

Vlad merely shrugs in self-defense. “It’s been a long time since I last saw her. Forgive me for feeling a little nostalgic.”

“When were you two together last?” Anya asks.

A smile wrinkles the corners of Vlad’s eyes. Dmitry swears that if he starts getting all teary and sappy he’s going to puke. “Oh, it was many, many years ago. I was much younger then. Much leaner, too,” he admits, patting his generous belly. “I just hope she won’t mind the grey hairs.”

Anya giggles and covers her mouth with her hands. Her cheeks flush a pale pink. Dmitry is almost taken aback at how endearing it is. She’s cute, he supposes, in the way that a stray dog is—adorable to look at, but you can’t help but feel that there’s a great deal of sadness beneath the goo-goo eyes and smiles.

“I’m sure she won’t mind. Besides, I think it makes you look distinguished,” she says, and there it is again: that stubborn, endless _kindness_ that she always manages to exude. If he were crueler, Dmitry thinks, it would sting his guilty conscience less.

How did he ever end up crossing paths with her of all people? If Dmitry were a superstitious or religious man, he’d call it fate or serendipity or divine will or something, but he’s neither of those things, so chalk it up to sheer dumb luck and call it a day.

So he’s a cynic. Sue him. Twenty-odd years under Soviet rule will do that and much worse to a penniless, orphaned street rat.

Not that any of that matters now, though. Once they’re out of Russia, nothing will ever make him go back again. As far as Dmitry is concerned, he is long gone, and all that awaits him on the other side of that border is a life of freedom.

_And the money._

Dmitry grins. Ten million rubles—what an exquisite, delicious thought. How could he even begin to go about spending such a fortune? He’d never go hungry again with that kind of money.  

_I could buy every can of beans in Saint Petersburg_ , he thinks, and snorts at his own wittiness.

“What are you smiling at?” Anya asks with a rakish tilt to her head.

Dmitry blinks. How long has she been staring at him? “Nothing.”

Unimpressed, she prods him forcefully in the ribs with her pointer finger. Dmitry scowls and swats her hand away. “Cut it out, Anya.”

“Dmitry Petrovich Sudayev doesn’t smile at _nothing_. What were you thinking about?”

“Why should I tell you?” he snaps, and Anya shoots him a grin, all teeth and mischief.

“Because, in case you've forgotten, I’m the Grand Duchess! _I_ give the orders, not you.”

Vlad lets out a muffled snort and checks off something in his notebook. “Point: Anya,” he says with a self-satisfied grin, and Dmitry rolls his eyes.

“I was just thinking of how nice and warm it will be in France,” he says, throwing his hands up in mock-surrender Anya raises a skeptical eyebrow but does not press the matter any further.

His side still smarting from her well-aimed jab, Dmitry folds his arms and leans back into his seat, allowing his legs to slide out beneath him. _It’s too damn cramped in here,_ he thinks sourly. _A man of my height needs room to stretch._

“You seem awfully cheery,” says Anya. “Was it something I said?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said I’m fine!” he snaps, a little more forcefully than intended.

Anya is unfazed. “Do you think you’ll miss it at all?”

“Miss what?”

She gestures vaguely with her hands, like he should be able to read her mind or something. “ _Russia_.”

Dmitry almost snorts. “No.”

She purses her lips and frowns, swinging her feet back and forth beneath the seat like an impatient little girl. “Surely not even a little? It was your home, after all.”

“It was a place I once lived, end of story.”

Anya seems to recoil at that, like he’s personally insulted her. She slumps back in her seat and stares out the window as the Russian countryside rolls by in a blur of white and grey. “I think I’ll miss it,” she says after a moment’s silence, “even if sometimes it was cold and frightening and cruel. Russia was all I’ve ever known. Even when I had nothing, I at least had a place to call home.” When Anya looks back at him, her eyes are distant and sad, and Dmitry feels a pang of guilt. For what exactly, he’s unsure.

Ok, perhaps he’s been a bit too harsh on her.  

“Will you make France your new home, then?” he says, with a deliberate softness to his voice.

A smile. “Perhaps. And if my family really is in Paris…” she trails off, her hand drifting towards the thin gold chain tucked into her collar. Has she always been wearing a necklace? Dmitry is surprised she hadn’t pawned it off back in Saint Petersburg (they can call it Leningrad all they want; it'll always be Saint Petersburg). Perhaps it’s something of sentimental value, then—a childhood relic she can’t bear to part with. He can’t say that he blames her.

“How about you?” she asks.

“What about me?”

“Once we get to Paris—if I really am what you think I am, that is—where will you go then?”

_Ten million rubles_ , offers the voice in his head, but quickly pushes the thought to the back of his mind before he says something stupid and upsets her again. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You could stay, you know,” she says softly. “In Paris. You, me and Vlad. It would be lovely. Wouldn’t it be lovely, Vlad?”

Vlad does not remove his eyes from his newspaper. “Of course, my darling.”

Dmitry cracks a smile in spite of himself. _Anything is lovely_ , he thinks, _when you compare it to Soviet Russia._ “I'm not sure I'd fit in well in Paris. I can’t even speak French.”

Anya raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Vlad never taught you any?”

“I never knew he spoke French.”

“You never asked!” Vlad objects.

Anya sits up a little straighter in her seat, something like a grin lurking in the corner of her mouth. “I could teach you,” she offers.  

“You would do that?”

“Of course. You’re my friend.”

Her kindness stings his guilty conscience more than it should. Dmitry’s face grows hot. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a student.”

“It’s not so difficult, not once you get started.”

“Maybe for you it’s easy,” he retorts, “but I’ve had the past twenty-eight years to learn Russian and I still haven’t gotten the hang of it.”

“Oh.” Anya wilts into her seat, and the compartment slips into a languid silence, save for the muffled _chug-a-chug-a_ of the train wheels and the _whip_ of the wind racing past. Her hands disappear in the folds of her skirt, twisting and pulling at the heavy grey fabric.

“And…well…what about the other possibility? What if I’m not?”

“Not what?”

“Not…not what you think I am.”

His heart stops for a moment. “Don’t think like that.”

“Anya…” says Vlad.

“It’s a possibility,” she says. "What if we get there and it all goes wrong? What if I don’t know how to be the Grand Duchess? What if—”

At that, the brakes let out an ear-piercing shriek, and suddenly they’re slowing down, lurching to a staggering, whining halt. Dmitry’s palms begin to sweat. “What’s going on?”

“We’re stopping,” Anya says, a hint of panic worming its way into her voice. “Why are we stopping? We haven’t even passed the border yet.”

Vlad swallows. “It’s nothing. It’s probably nothing. A part needs replacing, that’s all, I’m sure. There’s a mechanical issue. We’re fine.”

The entire train has fallen silent now, no more muffled chatter echoes from the nearby compartments. Something acidic and cloying is hanging in the air, gripping his windpipe, smothering him—Dmitry recognizes it as fear.

“I hear footsteps,” Anya whispers. “There’s someone coming.”

He hears it too—the heavy pattering of footfall, the shuffling of coats. And something else, something cold and metallic. Dmitry slips an arm around Anya’s shoulders as she buries herself in her book. “Act natural,” he whispers into her ear. He feels himself trembling and hopes that she will not notice.

The door slams open with a tremendous bang and the three of them jump in their seats. A uniformed soldier steps into the compartment, a glossy black pistol holstered at his hip. Anya stiffens.

“Evening, sir,” Vlad says, puffing out his chest, a charming grin plastered on his face. “Is there a problem?”

The soldier surveys the compartment with cool detachment. “We’re looking for someone who’s illegally leaving the country,” he says. Even his voice is stern and grey.

Vlad forces a laugh, and Dmitry resists the urge to cringe. “Didn’t have the right papers, eh?”

“He had right papers,” corrects the soldier, “in the wrong name. Count Ipolitov.”

From the back of the train comes a great clattering of noise followed by a hail of gunfire. Anya shrieks in terror and folds over on herself like she’s trying to sink into her seat and vanish from sight altogether. Someone shouts from further down the corridor, and the soldiers take off towards the rear of the train without a word.

“Oh my God,” gasps Dmitry once they’re sufficiently out of earshot.

Anya has lost the plot. “No, no, no,” she whispers under her breath in a frenzied mantra, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. Vlad stands slowly and peers around the doorframe, down the corridor.

“Should we see what happened?” he says quietly.

Dmitry glares. “We know what happened.”

She’s crying now, having turned herself towards him, the sleeve of his coat pressed to her mouth to muffle the sobs that wrack her small frame. Dmitry slips a protective arm around her shoulders and draws her close as she trembles and heaves.   

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. Anya’s hands latch onto the lapels of his waistcoat and hold on as if for dear life.   

Vlad tucks something into the inner pocket of his coat and makes a move to the door.  

“Where are you headed?”

“I’m going to check it out for myself.” He spares Anya a sympathetic glance. “You take care of her.”

Dmitry nods, and Vlad takes off down the corridor. He hardly notices that Anya has stopped crying.

“Anya?” he asks softly. “Are you alright?”

“I remember it,” she says suddenly. “It was midnight. We were sleeping when the soldiers came.”

“What soldiers?”

But she’s not listening to him anymore. Anya stares out the window again, and her red-rimmed eyes are focused on some point in the distance with the glazed, far-off look of someone unable to rouse themselves from a nightmare. “They said they were taking us somewhere safe. Toby’s little heart was beating against mine. ‘They’re decent men,’ I told him. ‘They won’t harm us’.”

“Anya…”

“They brought us into a basement.” Her breath comes fast, ragged and pained. “They told us to sit down and wait for the truck to arrive. I thought we were going to have our picture taken. And then…”

Anya’s voice trails off and her face goes white.

“Anya, are you still with me?”

She nods mutely, her eyes still glassy and unfocused. Dmitry holds her by the shoulders.

“We’re almost out of Russia. Once we cross the border, we’re safe.” Anya blinks confusedly as she returns to lucidity.

“Dmitry…”

“I’m here, I’m here. Are you with me, Anya? Anya?”

“I’m with you.” She sighs and squeezes her eyes shut. A single tear traces its way down her cheek. “At least, I think I am.”

“Are you alright?”

A nod. “I’m better. Thank you.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’d rather not,” she says stiffly. He can’t say he blames her.

Anya is silent for a moment, and then: “Who do you think I am, Dmitry?”

He blinks. This is a dangerous question, no matter how he answers. He could lie. He’s done it plenty of times before, heaven knows, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be stopping anytime soon. But the look on her face, the brokenness of her voice, the way she clung to him and cried—it cuts him to the core. Has he not lied to her enough already? How much more damage is he willing to inflict? No, he can’t do this to her, not after what she has just been through.

Honesty, then.

“I…don’t know,” he says, and as soon as the words leave his mouth he knows he’s answered wrong.

Anya shakes her head with a sigh. “You put these ideas in my head,” she says, her voiced edged with disappointment and, worse, suspicion, “and I’m starting to think they’re true.”

Oh, how Dmitry wants them to be true. But before he can say anything, Vlad bursts through the door, pale and frantic.

“What’s wrong?” Dmitry asks.

“It’s this blasted regime— _that’s_ what’s wrong,” says Vlad, clutching their very white travel papers with a trembling hand. “Everything’s in _red_.”

What little color remains in Anya’s face drains entirely. “What?”

The carriage becomes stifling hot as a cold knot of dread squeezes Dmitry’s heart, and suddenly his shirt’s too tight and his shoes are pinching his feet and his scalp is prickly and his collar is trying to strangle him to death. He snatches the papers from Vlad’s grip and begins to rifle through them in disbelief, his heart sinking lower and lower with every passing second. “You got us the wrong papers?!”

Vlad’s face reddens. “They were correct at the time!”

“Oh my God,” says Anya.

Gunshots, again, from the back of the train. Screams and shouting. Dmitry turns to Anya on instinct. She’s gone stiff again. He places a hand on her shoulder, squeezes gently. “Are you alright?”

Anya shakes her head and blinks furiously. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m all better now.” Then, to Vlad: “What was that? What are they doing now?”

Vlad wipes his brow with the cuff of his greatcoat. His glasses have fogged over. “It gets worse. They’re taking passengers with white papers to the back of the train and shooting them. Fugitives and defectors and ex-nobility and the like. It’s a bloody massacre, and they’ll be coming our way next.”

“Нам пиздец,” Dmitry swears under his breath. “Well, what the hell do we do now?”

Vlad’s already ahead of him, their suitcases hiked up beneath his armpits, and Dmitry silently thanks his lucky stars that they packed light. “I suggest that we get off of this train.”

“But we’re not even past the border yet!” Anya says, flabbergasted.

“Well, my dears,” Vlad says as he ambles past them, “unless you’d rather face a firing squad, I suggest you get a move on, and quickly!”

Dmitry freezes. This isn’t normal—it’s not like him to lose his cool under pressure—and yet he finds himself entirely immobilized in fear. There’s a deafening ringing in his ears, and soon the entire carriage seems to be spinning topsy-turvy around him like a carousel. Vertigo, nausea, terror. He pitches backwards, or rather, the compartment does, and catches himself against the luggage rack. From further down the corridor comes a marching storm of footsteps and more screams.

“Let’s go, Dmitry! Торопиться!” Vlad yells, but his voice sounds distant and tinny, like Dmitry’s hearing him from underwater.

Something tugs at his sleeve. Anya. She interlaces her fingers with his, squeezes firmly. “Come on, comrade,” she says. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

_I should be the one comforting you, not the other way around_ , he thinks impertinently.

Another gunshot sounds out, just a few compartments down, and Dmitry is snapped back to reality.

“Alright, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "“Нам пиздец" roughly corresponds to "I've fucked up".  
> "Торопиться" = "Hurry up!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who has two thumbs and no ability to update on any consistent basis whatsoever??? *This* girl!!!

They run.

They run, and they run, and they run, and they don’t stop running until the train and the soldiers are nothing but distant pinpricks on the horizon and the shouts and screams of the passengers blend into a deafening silence under the roar of the wind in their ears, at which point they slump into a panicked march, too exhausted to keep sprinting yet too terrified to stop altogether.

Dmitry finds his breath coming in short, sharp bursts as they trudge on. The snow—God, it’s not even winter anymore, why does there still have to be so much _snow_?—has completely soaked through his shoes and trousers, and his legs are slowly going numb in the cold. Distantly, he thinks of his father and Siberia, and then decides that he has no right to complain about the cold. Mind over matter, he tells himself. It’s easy not to mind the weather when the ‘matter’ is a train full of heavily-armed Soviet officers. He’s not going to freeze to death, and it’s better than being shot, at any rate.

He only hopes that the soldiers haven’t given chase.

They’re far behind, if they have, but even so, Dmitry silently resolves to put as much distance between themselves and the train as humanly possible. He’s heard the horror stories of defectors: search parties and flashlights, manhunts through forests, bullets flying through the air indiscriminately. It’s almost enough to turn his stomach—his very empty stomach—but that particular line of thought is a distraction, and since he has no time for distractions, he pushes the it to the back of his mind and soldiers on mutely.

Only once the Sun has begun to sink along the horizon does he realize how much time has passed. Anya’s still trudging along, struggling to keep up with him without a word of complaint. _Poor thing_ , Dmitry thinks. She’s only short, and it can’t be easy to maintain pace with his considerably longer strides. Even Vlad has always had a difficult time with that.

Then from behind him there comes the sound of shuffling fabric and snow being crushed, followed by a stream of what he assumes are French expletives. Dmitry halts in his tracks to turn on his heels. The sight before him is pitiful. Vlad has collapsed, almost face-first, into the snowdrift, his suitcase the only thing that prevents him from falling flat on the ground.

“I can’t go any further,” he wheezes. “I’m exhausted, Dmitry. I’m too old for this sort of exertion.”

Anya, ever the trooper, is already at Vlad’s side, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades and murmuring words of encouragement. Dmitry sucks in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. “The Polish border’s only ten more kilometers,” he says. “We have to keep moving. We won’t be safe until we get there.”

He doesn’t, as a matter of fact, know if the Polish border is only ten more kilometers away. It could be five, it could be fifty for all he knows—he’s not a goddamn map. But it’s the conviction that counts, and even if Vlad doesn’t fully believe him, perhaps it’ll be enough to keep him going.

“We should rest,” says Anya after a long moment’s silence.

Dmitry raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“He’s exhausted. _I’m_ exhausted. We all could do with a break.” She must notice the disbelief in his face, because she then adds: “Look at you, Dmitry—you’re shaking.”

Dmitry shoves his hands into his pockets. How has he not noticed the way his legs are trembling, as if threatening to give out from beneath him? Anya’s face shifts into something worried, and she draws her jacket a little tighter across her shoulders.

“The soldiers,” Dmitry begins, but his protest withers and dies in his throat. It’s pointless to argue, and he knows that immediately.

“The soldiers will need to rest as well,” she says. “We can’t keep going on if you drop dead from exhaustion.”

Vlad raises one finger in assent. “I’m in agreement with Anya.”

Dmitry sighs and turns his gaze behind them, where the train tracks would be, far off in the distance and hidden by the dense bulk of the trees. All he can hear is the sound of the wind and their own panting. They’re alone enough to spare a break, he supposes.

“Fine,” he says after a long moment’s silence. “How does five minutes sound?”

Vlad’s face collapses and Anya shoots him a stern look. “ _Five_?”

“Ten,” he amends, and, seeing his companions’ collective dismay, quickly adds, “Okay, fine. Half an hour.”

“That sounds much better,” says Anya. She turns back to Vlad. “Do you still have them?”

“Pardon?” says Dmitry, furrowing his brow.

Vlad nods and allows Anya to help him struggle to his feet. “The pierogies. They’re in my coat.” He begins to dig through his pockets.

Dmitry blinks and shakes his head in disbelief. “ _Pierogies_?”

“They were selling them on the train while you were asleep,” says Anya.

At last, Vlad retrieves a small white paper bag from one of the inner pockets of his greatcoat. “I was hoping to have saved these for when we arrived in Warsaw,” he says, and opens the bag to inhale its scent. “Well, there’s no better time than now, I suppose.”

Dmitry pads over towards them, dusting snow off his knees. He can already smell the pierogies—sharp and savory and utterly _mouthwatering_. But that’s his stomach talking, and he’s learned time and time again that the only organ really worth listening to is his brain. “Shouldn’t we save those?” he says. “We don’t know when we’re going to be able to eat again.”

Vlad scoffs. “And miss them while they’re still warm? Have you gone mad?” He reaches into the bag and hands one pierogie to Anya. Her eyes widen in disbelieving awe.

“It _is_ still warm!” she gasps, and before Dmitry can even sneak in a word edgewise, she begins to attack the pierogie with her teeth.

Vlad turns to Dmitry next, holding a pierogie in his outstretched hand. “Here you go.”

“No, thank you.”

Anya shoots him a puzzled look. “Aren’t you hungry?” she says through a mouthful of pastry and potatoes.

“I’m fine.”

As if on cue, his stomach lets out a traitorous growl. Anya smiles knowingly and swallows down the rest of her bite.

“Alright, tough guy,” she says. “You should eat. Before you collapse.”

Unthinkingly, Dmitry allows Vlad to press the pierogie into his hands. It’s so warm it’s almost unreal. Dmitry wants to tuck it into the folds of his jacket, let its delicious heat keep him warm. It’s a herculean feat of self-restraint that he doesn’t devour the whole thing in one bite.

“Приятного аппетита!” says Vlad, biting into the pierogie. “Now, we feast like kings.”

Anya grins. “За ваше здоровье и благополучие,” she says cheekily. _To your health and happiness._

Well, Dmitry’s happy enough once the pierogie hits his tongue. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s tasted since…well, come to think of it, he can’t ever remember tasting anything this beautiful. His mother’s borscht, perhaps, but that’s so long ago he’d almost entirely forgotten about it until now. Maybe it’s the hunger talking, though he’s well acquainted with this level of hunger and then some, or maybe it’s the way his legs have finally stopped shaking and he can feel his fingertips again. Or maybe it’s that his heart has finally stopped thundering and he can put the sounds of the gunshots out of his mind. Or maybe it’s that Anya is smiling now, picking crumbs off her face and licking the grease off her fingers in a way that’s maybe a little disgusting but even more than that, endearing.

“God,” says Vlad one it’s all over and they’ve slumped into a blissful haze of the aftertaste of onions and sauerkraut and cheese and pastry. “That was truly something else.”

“I could sleep now,” says Anya. Dmitry shoots her a sharp look as if to say, _Not on my watch, you don’t_ , and she throws her hands up in mock-surrender. “Which, of course, I won’t do, because Dmitry Petrovich is going to have us _walk_ all the way to Paris by nightfall.”

Vlad chuckles and elbows him in the ribs, probably a little harder than intended. Dmitry rubs at the sore spot in his side, the same one Anya had jabbed earlier on the train—they seem to have taken a liking to his left kidney, these two—and even stranger than the fact that the patronymic doesn’t rub him the wrong way this time is that he finds himself laughing along as well.

“Actually, if you’ll both excuse me for a minute,” says Vlad, nodding vaguely in the direction of the woods, “I’m afraid I must go relieve myself.”

Anya gathers a clump of snow in her hands and works it between her fingers, to wash off the remaining crumbs, no doubt. “Just don’t get lost.”

Vlad straightens his collar and re-buttons his coat. “On the contrary, my dear, I’ll try my best to do just that,” he says with a chuckle and a conspiratorial wink. “Maybe I’ll wander off and wind up in Warsaw.”

Dmitry raises an eyebrow.

“You kids wait here for me. _À plus tard, mes petits_.” There’s something vaguely condescending in that phrase, but Dmitry doesn’t know enough French to articulate exactly _what_ it is he objects to. And with that, Vlad takes off and not a minute later he’s disappeared into the trees.

“How’s he going to find his way back?” says Anya.

“Vlad? He’ll find a way. He always does,” Dmitry says. He drops into a low crouch and begins to brush snow off a log. Once it’s cleared to his satisfaction, he takes a seat on top of it, taking care to face away from the direction that Vlad went. Anya squeezes in beside him.

“Comfy there?” he says.

She leans in with something of a smirk. “Would it be bad if I said I was hungry again?”

Dmitry laughs. If he thinks about it hard enough, he can still taste the pierogie on his tongue, still feel its warmth in his stomach. “You’re going to make _me_ hungry.”

Anya shrugs. “We’ll suffer together, then.”

This time, the silence is comforting instead of awkward. Dmitry is almost starting to feel good again when Anya says, “You know, I never properly thanked you for what you did on the train.”

Though he doesn’t know why, Dmitry’s face begins to burn. “It was nothing,” he says.

“It wasn’t nothing,” she insists, wringing her hands together.

Guilt gnaws at his insides. Dmitry’s skin prickles all over and he’s overcome with the urge to scratch it out, to claw out the roots of disgust and dread that are worming their way into his stomach. Anya’s eyes feel like they’re burning into his skull. When she reaches for his hand, he nearly jerks his arm back as if he’s been electrocuted.

Anya draws her hand back, looking slightly crestfallen, and Dmitry’s heart plummets to the pit of his stomach. “Anya…” he begins fruitlessly, his voice trailing off into nothingness.

“I know we got off on the wrong foot,” she says. “I’m sorry for that. But I really would like it if I could consider you a friend.”

Dmitry wants nothing more than to go run off and bury his face in the snow at this point. _I’m the one who should be apologizing, not you_ , he thinks. _Don’t you realize? I’m a bad man, I’m doing something terrible, something you’ll never forgive me for._

Anya must mistake his look of pure guilt for something else entirely, because her shoulders sink and her mouth crumples into a frown. “Are you alright? Was it something I said?”

Mercifully, he’s spared from further explanation when Vlad comes bursting back through the trees, red in the cheeks and panting like a madman, his eyes wide and frantic.

Dmitry rises to his feet on instinct, Anya with him. “Vlad? What’s wrong?”

“I came as fast as I could,” he wheezes.

 _Evidently_ , Dmitry’s mind says flatly.

“I was headed back, following the river—there’s a small river not too far from here, and I saw. I saw it. There’s a _village_ on the other side of this hill,” he says.

“We’re near a town?”

Vlad nods and sucks in a sharp breath. “There was a sign hanging up in one of the trees. Latin alphabet. Klimówka.”

 _Klimówka_. Dmitry mouths the word, tasting the feel of it on his tongue. Distinctly Slavic. Distinctly not-Russian. His heart skips a beat.

“Klimówka?” says Anya.

“We’re in Poland,” Vlad says. “We’ve made it to _Poland_.”

Anya shrieks and covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God,” she gasps. Dmitry can see fresh tears glistening in her eyes, and before he even realizes what’s happening, she has latched onto his arm, pressing her face into his shoulder. “We did it, Dmitry,” she says.

And then it hits him like a sudden slap to the face:

They’re free.

They’re free, and the borders of the Soviet Union are behind them and they’re finally _free_ , and Dmitry never has to go back ever again, and he’s free, and he can live out the rest of his life in blissful freedom forever and ever and ever, amen.  

And because he is used to disappointment and is not the sort to get his hopes up without proof, he says, “You’re sure?”

Vlad nods emphatically. “Come on. You’ll see.”

Anya seizes his hand with more strength than her size would have you believe and drags him along behind her as she and Vlad take off in the direction of the village.

“Let’s go, Dmitry!” she says, laughing, her hair tossing about her face in a wild golden tangle.

From up ahead, he vaguely registers Vlad shouting something, but all he hears is the thrum of the wind roaring in his ears and the echo of Anya’s voice, and all he feels is the snow-slick earth beneath his feet and the pounding of his own heart and the calluses along Anya’s palm and the warmth of her skin against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From my (very limited) knowledge of Russian and from what I've gleaned of Duolingo and (forgive me) Google Translate, "приятного аппетита" roughly means "bon appétit", and "за ваше здоровье и благополучие" means "to your health and happiness". If I've butchered these in any way, corrections are greatly appreciated.  
> Klimówka is an actual modern-day town in Poland near the Belarusian border; I don't know if this town existed in 1927, nor do I know if any Soviet train lines of the time would have taken anyone that close to Poland; all I do know is that it was the first result that came up when I Googled "Polish town near Belarusian border". As with all my fics, please take historical accuracy with a pinch of salt.  
> Thank you a million times over for reading. Comments and kudos (but comments especially) make my entire day and, 10% of all proceeds go towards feeding the hamster running in the wheel that powers my brain.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dmitry is a mess, Vlad is tired, Anya's nostalgic, and Gleb isn't here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regular updates? I don't know her.
> 
> In all seriousness, I'd first like to make a massive apology for my atrocious updates schedule. High school has been overwhelming, I've gotten distracted with different projects, and mostly I'm just lazy and easily-sidetracked and scatterbrained in general, and I've had this roughly outlined for ages but never really had the energy/moxie to get around to polishing it up. But here's the third and final chapter, as promised. Hope you guys didn't go stir-crazy (or pitchfork-crazy) during the wait. :)

There isn’t a proper inn in Klimówka, not even a bed-and-breakfast, but an elderly farmer by the name of Marko allows them to stay in his spare bedroom for the night. Anya takes the bed, having claimed it little more than five seconds after laying eyes on it, while Dmitry and Vlad are relegated to the floor, Vlad curled up on the carpet at the foot of the bed and Dmitry splayed across the doorway lest any unwanted visitors try to interrupt them in the middle of the night. Considering that the last place he slept was in a cold, hard train seat and that said train had been filled with Soviet soldiers, and that their only other options for the night are the local stable or the snow-filled woods, Dmitry admittedly can’t complain too much about this arrangement.

Nor can Vlad, but that doesn’t stop him from trying, because he is a Popov and thus by nature enjoys whining. Vlad, mercifully, is a heavy sleeper who dozes off easily, so Dmitry and Anya aren’t subject to his complaints for too long. What they are subject to is the frigid bite of the wind that seeps in between the cracks of the floor and walls, howling and screaming through nooks and crannies with all the furious shrillness of a boiling tea kettle.

Ah, well. He has a blanket and as floors go, this one has relatively few splinters. A street rat will take what he can get.

“I could always toss you the sheets,” Anya offers. There’s a solitary candle on the dresser, and she appears to have been on the verge of reaching for it to blow it out. Dmitry wonders what caught her eye and made her pause, before realizing that he’s shivering.

“I’m fine,” he says. It’s true—the wind and snow and the events of the past few days have left him numb rather than cold. Numb enough, evidently, to have stripped down to his undershirt and trousers. But his hands are still shaking against his will, so he reaches over to the bundle of his clothes and pulls on his coat. The wool is thin, frayed through in some places, but it warms him instantly, and he lets his head drop back to his rucksack, which he has stuffed in the crook of his elbow like a pillow.

Anya does not look convinced. She doesn’t look much warmer than he does, with only a thin quilt more suited to summer than winter—Marko’s generosity, evidently, only goes so far. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.”

Okay, truth be told, he wouldn’t mind having an extra set of sheets to wrap himself in, but he _would_ mind the thought of her being cold for his sake. For a moment, Dmitry thinks that something must be wrong with him. You don’t bother yourself with the well-being of others on the streets. He should take those sheets, says the animalistic part of him, the part that never truly left St. Petersburg. He should take what he can and keep himself warm, and she can figure the rest out for herself. She’s a smart girl. Should be smart enough to know not to offer him something she’d be disappointed in losing.

But he doesn’t, for some strange reason. Should, but doesn’t. Won’t. Can’t.

Goddammit, Anya.

“Alright,” she says, but there’s a tilt to her eyebrows and her words that tells him she still doesn’t believe him, and silently, he curses his own voice for telegraphing his inner monologue all the way across the room. It must be his voice, because his face is purposefully blank, the way he always tries to keep it when he’s talking to people, or talking to himself, or both at the same time and trying to hide it.

He feels a tiny smile working at the corners of his mouth and presses his face to the pocket-covering of his rucksack to hide it.

“Goodnight, Dmitry Petrovich,” she says playfully.

Is this going to be a habit of hers, the patronym? He would almost regret telling her his father’s name if it didn’t sound so lovely in her voice, if it didn’t make his stomach go crinkly in a weird-but-not-entirely-unpleasant way.

The smile wins out. “Goodnight, Anya Nikolaevna,” he teases back.

Because his head is still tilted to the floor, he can’t properly see her face, but he can hear her laugh, and he knows instantly that the corners of her eyes and the dimple on her left cheek must be scrunched up, as they always are when she laughs.

“Спокойной ночи,” she repeats. She blows the candle out, plunging the room into darkness, and all is silent, save for the now-faint whistling of the wind and the muffled rumble of Vlad’s snoring.

* * *

 

They’re off the next morning. It’s a day’s walk to the next town over, and then another day’s journey to the closest rail station. Dmitry is leery of boarding a train again—old habits die hard—until Vlad reminds him that they’re not longer in Soviet territory, even if their forged papers mark them as fugitives. It gets them to Warsaw intact, at least.

They run out of money somewhere between Poland and Germany, but that’s alright, because Vlad, it turns out, is a fantastic gambler. He wins them a thousand marks in a game of poker, which lasts them through Belgium, and from there they travel by foot, sleeping under the stars at night when they aren’t able to stow away in an abandoned shack or an empty building or an unlocked doorway. The weather lets up for them as they press on westward, and the bitterness of winter quickly thaws into a vivacious, blooming spring, and the coniferous thicket slowly gives way to deciduous woodlands.

Something in the air shifts with the changing seasons. Dmitry doesn’t know what it is, but it fills him with lightness and trepidation all at once.

One morning, on a day not unlike any other, they come upon a hill—if you could even call it that, really; it’s more of a mound of earth, and the thickness of the woods doesn’t break or bend the whole way. There is nothing particularly special about his hill, only that the sole of Dmitry’s left boot separates and peels away from the rest of his shoe halfway up, and Anya’s stomach lets out a loud rumbling noise, and something in Vlad’s hip goes _crack_ , and it suddenly dawns on the three of them just how dead-tired they are: exhausted and numb down to their bones.

“Keep going,” Dmitry says, sensing their hesitation. The spot where he assumes his appendix is smarts sharply in protest. He bites down the pain as they trudge onwards.

“It can’t be all that far now,” says Anya. “We have to be close.”

Vlad tips his head back towards the sky, where Dmitry notices a group of hawks are circling overhead, catching the thermals that rise from the hills. It’s reassuring, for some reason.

Slowly but surely, they crest the hill. Beneath them, woodland spreads in every direction, like a vast patchwork quilt of green and gold. And further ahead—

Dmitry’s breath leaves him in an instant. He blinks, not quite trusting his eyes. The sight before him remains untouched. He blinks again, trusting them even less.

“ _La belle France_!” cries Vlad, and he promptly collapses to the ground to kiss the earth.

And because he is a cynic at heart and must always have some suitably scathing response to absolutely everything, Dmitry scoffs and says, “It looks just like Russia.”

Which it does, in fairness—there is nothing particularly special about the woods or the hill they’re standing on. Even the sight of Paris not too far off in the distance, save for the Eiffel Tower, could just as easily be another Petersburg or Moscow.

The feel, though. The feel of it is different.

Vlad seems to have taken personal offense to his remark. “France looks nothing like Russia,” he snips, and oh, how Dmitry wants that to be true, but it’s not. It shouldn’t remind him of Russia, it shouldn’t ache this deeply, thinking of what he’s left behind in the country of his birth—the cold, the hunger, the misery—but some small, stubborn part of him has relegated itself to a strange bittersweet sensation he can’t quite pinpoint.

He thinks its name might be nostalgia.

But enough of that now. Ahead of them lies _la France_ , and Vlad is slightly teary-eyed, and Anya is—

And Anya isn’t here.

Dmitry’s head whips back and forth, searching for a glimpse of that grey skirt or a snatch of that strawberry blonde hair, but all he can see is Vlad and the clearing and the trees and the Parisian skyline. Fear grips him, though he doesn’t know why. She can’t have wandered off too far. They’ve only been here five minutes, for Christ’s sake, she can’t have gotten herself lost already, not when they’ve come all this way for her.

 _Well, for_ you, says the little voice in his head. _You and the money_.

Dmitry decides that he does not like this voice. He doesn’t have to spend too much time dwelling on it, however, because a second later, his eyes land on a distinctively Anya-shaped fleck of gold.

She’s wandered ahead of them, almost at the foot of the hill now, staring ahead with her back turned to them, and the knot of tension between his shoulders deflates with a ragged sigh.

“Anya,” he calls.

If she’s heard him, she gives no indication of this. Dmitry thinks of her episode on the train, that odd day-dreaming spell, and his pulse quickens. He runs to her side, even as his joints groan and creak.

When he finally sees her, he knows that there is no cause for alarm. Her skin is pale, her cheeks flushed with pink. Her eyes are misted over with tears, but they’re not distant and cloudy like they were on the train. There’s something fulfilled in those eyes, something hopeful and joyous, fearful all the same. Anya regards the rising spire of the Eiffel Tower as if it is an old, long-lost friend that she has only now laid eyes upon, and there’s the faintest hint of a smile curling her lips. She holds one hand almost to her mouth but not quite, and the other is fisted tightly in the hem of her coat.

Softly, gently as he can manage, Dmitry lays a hand on her shoulder. She jumps at his touch.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

Anya shakes her head and runs her hand through her hair. “Don’t apologize.”

Her eyes still aren’t on him. He follows her gaze, out into the open. Paris from this distance appears as small as a doll’s house. Dmitry wonders how small the people in the streets would look if he could see them from here. It’s easier to maintain the illusion like this—still some distance between him and this big, beautiful, glittering _something_ that he’s been chasing for so long. He can only imagine how it’ll feel once they actually arrive.

“It doesn’t feel real. Does it?” he offers to Anya.

She shakes her head again, still in a trance. “No. All this way and we’re finally here.”

From behind them, he hears Vlad slowly ambling down the hill, cursing each respective ligament and tendon as it pains him. Dmitry would laugh if he weren’t so transfixed by the sight before him, though he’s not sure how much of it is Paris and how much of it is Anya.

“It’s beautiful,” he says.

Anya sighs heavily. “It’s so beautiful. I wish I could take a photograph.” A laugh, short and bitter, but a laugh nonetheless. “I could just stare at this forever. My feet might never move from this spot again.”

Dmitry frowns. “Are you alright?” he asks her.

Anya ducks her head at that, as if she’s been snapped back to reality. “Yes. Mostly. Well—yes. I’m just”—she sucks in a quick breath, like she’s steeling her nerves, though there’s no need for that, not when it’s just him and Vlad half out of earshot—“nervous.”

His heart tightens. Oh, God, why does her being nervous have to make _him_ nervous as well? “You shouldn’t be,” he says. Quickly, because Vlad is getting closer, and the last thing he wants is him offering unsolicited advice, which he will do, no doubt, if he overhears. “There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

Lies. Big, fat lies, every last word.

Her eyelids flutter. She looks away. Her hands tighten into fists at her sides. She doesn’t quite believe him.

 _Smart girl_ , says the voice.

Dmitry tells the voice to keep its goddamn trap shut.

“I’m just afraid that it won’t be what I’m expecting.”

“Well, what _are_ you expecting?” he says, almost on the verge of exasperation. More for himself than for her.

“I don’t know!” she says. “God, Dmitry, I never even thought we’d get past the border, nevermind here. And it’s so…”

Close. It’s so close and unreal and unimaginable. That’s what she means. He knows, because he feels the same way too.  

“There’s nothing left for us in Russia,” he says quietly. “All we can do is move ahead. We can’t turn back now, Anya. Not when we’ve come so far.”

Something in her face shifts. Fear into contentment, as if she’s drawn some conclusion of her own accord, one he can’t work out by studying the tilt of her brow or the hardness of her mouth.

“Well,” she says, and now there’s a note of confidence in her voice, “we won’t know until we get there, will we?”

Without another word and before he can say anything in response to that, she hitches up her skirts in her hands and takes off, humming something to herself, and Vlad follows after her with the bow-legged walk of a man who has not walked enough in his life who has just walked too much, and Dmitry can do nothing but stand there, staring as their figures retreat against the horizon and onwards and onwards still.

Anya holds her head high as she walks. Determined and unstoppable. Dmitry’s heart rises and sinks as he watches her, up and down, and it doesn’t know which direction to go in, and it’s beating so terribly fast he’s afraid it might up and beat itself out of his chest altogether, and his stomach tightens and his hands spark and twitch with invisible electricity, and there’s an odd buzzing sensation in the back of his throat, and he can’t stop blinking, and his mouth’s gone dry, and—

Oh.

Oh, he realizes, looking at her again, looking at her and realizing that _she_ is the one who’s making him feel these weird, new feelings. It’s slow to sink in, but once it does, his face starts burning hotly and he looks away in embarrassment.

No, he tells himself, staring at his feet. He won’t think of that now. He can’t distract himself with this nonsense, not when the plan is so close to fruition. It was a mistake letting his head get all tangled up like this in the first place. He can’t afford it. He won’t allow it. There’s bigger and better things to preoccupy himself with, and if it all goes off the railings, well, it won’t be because of him and his wandering eyes and equally-wandering thoughts. No time for that. No sense in it either.

And after all, Paris awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all a million times over for reading! If you enjoyed, consider leaving kudos or a comment for my needy greedy writer self. :)  
> xoxox

**Author's Note:**

> "“Нам пиздец" roughly corresponds to "I've fucked up".  
> "Торопиться" = "Hurry up!"


End file.
